


Day 7 - Act of God

by Chibifukurou



Category: Watchmen (2009), Watchmen (TV 2019)
Genre: F/M, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-09
Updated: 2021-02-09
Packaged: 2021-03-15 02:06:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 984
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29306196
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chibifukurou/pseuds/Chibifukurou
Summary: Set between the movie and TV show.Laurie on giving up on the idea that a single person or small team of vigilantes should try to save the world.
Relationships: Dan Dreiberg/Laurie Juspeczyk, Laurie Juspeczyk/Dr. Manhattan
Kudos: 2
Collections: February Ficlet Challenge 2021: Apocalypse No





	Day 7 - Act of God

There are two G-ds in the universe. Laurie had known that as long as she'd been alive. 

Falling for the second God, had been easy. Jon had looked at her and she thought he had loved her completly. Not in the way the rabid fans loved her, with an eye towards her waistline and how her mother aged.

No, he was powerful beyond comprehension. He could have anyone in the world and when he looked at her, he saw something special.

Twenty three and newly trying to find her way out from under her parents' shadow, she'd wanted to be special. More than that to be known and loved in the unconditional way neither of her parents had managed. 

It wasn't until they had been together for nearly a decade that she allowed herself to feel the sting of loving a being who saw her as beautiful for the sake of her future and past selves. Never for the person she was in the present. 

He would love her and he would love the woman who came after her. Just like he loved the woman who came before. And for him, he would be loving them all at the same time. With that fierce assurance that they were destined to be together and find love.

All the doubt and rage and guilt they felt at his loss would not register. Because those would be experienced in the times when Jon would not be there with them. And so for him it would be like it never happened.

He didn't love her through her darkest moments, her petty thoughts, or her questions about the morality of what they were doing. He had never been able to see into her heart of hearts.

He had the power of a god, but he was still just a man. His vision limited to those things that effected him.

The betrayal she had felt when that realization hit. It was too cutting, too deep. She put it aside. Locked it into her heart where she could act like she had never realized. She had a lifetime of practice loving flawed beings who judged her only on how she presented herself.

*

The world doesn't end. Jon still leaves. As he always must have known he would. Dan stays and she thinks this, then will be the thing that finally gets her seen in the entirety of her petty rage filled self. 

They are two of the only people in the world that know what happened at the end of the World. Know that the squid that hit New York and the smaller incursions are all Adrian's work. 

There was no g-d there in Karnak when the squid was sent. Neither the g-d of Laurie's ansestors or the one that humanity had made. 

Just a single, crazed man throwing rocks at the other kids in the playground for not doing what he wanted. 

The secret only binds them for a few years. It cuts them apart as much as it pulls them together. Dan sees her rage. He knows rage, loved Rorschach through his.

He assumes that means he knows her. Assumes she is willing to die for justice

Robert Redford gets the presidency. Laurie knows the government from years at Jon's side, knows her old team mate. The laws and projects that start rolling out of Washington have Adrian's finger prints all over it.

The secret is out. Only it's not to their fellow citizens. It's to the rich and powerful. Redford doesn't seem like a bad man. Neither did Adrian. Neither did Jon.

They are all still human though. Deep down at the core. Men who are convinced they are right and don't give a shit about others points of view, they are the kind of evil that just keeps spreading. 

It's not a surprise when Dan decides he needs to put a stop to it. Confront Redford about what was happening.

Well maybe a little bit of a surprise. She figured he would take a page out of Rorschach's book. Print a scathing journal and hope someone listens. The ghost of Rorschach's death at Jon's hand had loomed large over their whole relationship.

She packs her bags and moves out the morning he leaves for DC. She takes his pet owl with her. It's not like Dan is going to come back for him. 

Dan is arrested by the end of the next day.

When the Secret Service comes to question her two days later, she claims Dan has become increasingly obsessed with Rorschac's journal as of late. 

She'd gotten uncomfortable and decided she had to leave. No she hadn't known that he's was planning to attack the president. 

He would be locked away for life as a terrorist. She needed to keep her nose clean if she didn't want to join him. 

She smiles and agrees. In the end she still has the security clearance she'd had when she was traveling with Jon. And it would have raised questions if every member of their old team disappeared or got arrested the same year Redford took office.

They leave and for the first time in her life she is truly alone, with no one's grand mission to guide her.

+

She joins the bureau a month later, after they announce a task force to hunt down vigilantes.

Adrian, Dan, Rorschach, even Jon they had all believed in the Superhero hype. They had set out to save the world.

Instead they had broken it. Shaped it in their own images. Killed some thirty thousand people and subverted the government. Killed an uncountable number of the Vietnamese for the country's benefit. Tried to kill the president.

She is going to make damn sure that none of these other rich vigilante assholes decided they should set out to save the world again. 

Otherwise there isn't going to be a world to save.


End file.
